


Burning, loving, hurting

by VenezuelanWriter



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Being understimated, Childhood Trauma, Drinking & Talking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Feelings, Len is alive of course, M/M, Mick centric, Mick deserves love, Mick has feelings, Mick is smarter than they think, POV Leonard Snart, POV Mick Rory, Pyromania, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 06:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11007837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenezuelanWriter/pseuds/VenezuelanWriter
Summary: Mick was angry because the whole team underestimated him. Of course, everyone but the one person that could get him through that disappointment: Leonard Snart.





	1. I. Believer

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the awesome upsidearound <3 Thank youuuu

_First things first_

_I'ma say all the words inside my head_

_I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been._

_Second thing second_

_Don't you tell me what you think that I can be_

_I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea._

 

Mick was tired. In fact, the word ‘tired’ was probably the understatement of his life. Besides hysterical and exhausted, he also was fairly enraged.

He poured himself a glass of vodka and prepared to start the long-ass session of introspection he knew was ahead.

Every single person in the ship believed he was an idiot. They all treated him like the heartless and stupid criminal they thought he was. They didn’t even bother to hide their insinuations of it and sometimes they didn’t even care if they qualified as insinuations.

For example, there were times when he believed the rest of the crew figured he was drunk—oh, and they better hope they never meet drunk Mick—and completely underestimated his skills, his intelligence and his ability to follow orders beyond rescuing or killing somebody.

Mick loved to drink, that was a fact known by everyone.  That didn’t mean he had one of those called ‘drinking problems’. God, he hated that phrase. He drank as much as he did because by then his liver had become practically immune to alcohol. If they only knew how many beers he had to have before actually getting a little tipsy.

It also made him mad that while maybe he wasn't as smart and academically qualified as, say, Haircut or the Professor—Hell, even the kid had studied for longer than he ever had—he surely wasn't someone with “The IQ of meat,” as Captain Asshole-Hunter had said himself once.

He had something they rarely realized he had: Experience. He wasn’t a wise advisor, but he’d been through enough shit so he could offer them a highly qualified son of a bitch’s point of view. Apparently, even that they forgot he could do.

But at least there was an exception to every rule. ‘Every single person in the ship’ obviously excluded Snart from that package. That guy knew perfectly well that Mick was a lot more than nasty fire burns, a threatening look embed for life in his eyes and a rough voice tone sticked to his vocal chords.

Snart—Leonard, in fact—has had Mick's back for years. They'd been trusting each other for God knows how long and they'd built true respect for one another. That respect was one the most precious, realest things in Mick’s life. That and his obsession with fire, of course.

Both things were just sacred for him. He couldn't bear to lose Leonard’s respect or the amount of particular pleasure that flames dancing in harmony provided him.

*

_I was choking in the crowd,_

_Living my brain up in the cloud,_

_Falling like ashes to the ground_

_Hoping my feelings—they would drown._

_But they never did, ever lived, ebbing and flowing,_

_Inhibited, limited_

_‘Till it broke up and it rained down._

 

Eventually, for Mick, being angry had turned into his defense mechanism. It was easier being angry at the entire world (even at the ones that had no responsibility on his angriness) than being sad, which was equal to weak.  

It was also easier to burn things, to let himself be drawn into the different bright colors of flames and the heat of a vivid fire turning wild. The smell of it, the loud noise of the sparks exploding, the ashes floating around his creation like the evidence it left behind.

It was all connected, Mick had concluded.

See, life fucked him up. Badly. When he was 7 he started playing with matches. And long story short, at the age of 15 he was blaming himself for his family's death.

He’d been doing that for most of his life, until he realized he couldn’t have controlled his juvenile fear even if he’d wanted to. 

Instead of fearing what had lead to that tragedy and that trauma, he crossed lines that he didn’t even know existed. In the penitentiary system, things became blurry. Without even realizing it, violence became his first answer for everything and the next best option to solve problems was fire and burning and causing as much pain as possible with it.

The most ironic vicious circle of all.

He'd run away and let things go sideways instead of being brave enough to save his own parents and it’d had a really high cost. Accident or not, it had been the key moment that changed his whole life and turned him into what he was nowadays —a tough S. O. B. nobody wanted near them.

Who knew where he would be if everything hadn't turned out so wrong. Maybe he would've gone to school and gotten over his obsession with fire, have graduated and married someday. Or maybe and most likely, he would've gotten in trouble anyway because, after all, he was never known for following the rules and doing the right thing.

He would never know and it wasn't something Mick liked to think about. The possibilities never ceased to torment him, and neither did the terrifying fact that he was a victim of his own equivocal choices and misfortune—he’d been unlucky, if you asked him. Out of all people, he wondered why he’d been the chosen one. The _mad_ one

He hardly accepted it, but deep down he knew it was true. Although he was a victim, he was also a survivor.

At least, if one good thing had come out of his misery, it was that it had led him to meet Leonard.

Leonard was 15 when they met in juvie. Just a kid. Mick was 17—not a full grown man either—but he could still offer Leonard the protection he needed in that dark place.

It became reciprocal, because Leonard—even as the little bastard he already was, full of wit and also great,  mischievous ideas—was able to bring some light in Mick’s life he'd already lost by then. Leonard saved him from losing himself in his insanity.

It was the innocence that Mick witnessed Leonard stop having, the same innocence that Mick got back as if he'd stolen it from him. It grounded Mick, and it gave him a bigger purpose besides being an arsonist—being an arsonist by Leonard’s side.

*

_Last things last_

_By the grace of the fire and the flames,_

_You're the face of the future, the blood in my veins._

 

At the end of the day, Mick realized the bright constant in his life had been Leonard. There were the others constants in his life, _dark_ constants, like abandonment from the rest of his relatives and the unhealthy amount of self hatred he unfolded after everything he’d done.

That being said, it clearly was worth the clarification of Leonard being the positive constant, among the List of Tragic Events of Mick’s Life that he could definitely write if he ever felt that miserable.

Back to Leonard, right. “The bright constant”, as in the only thing Mick would always look out for.

No matter how angry they might be at each other, Leonard was the only person Mick surely never dreamed of burning alive. Which, by Mick’s standards, was saying a lot.

Mick was not the feeling kind of guy, but he was more than proud of himself because he'd let Leonard know how important he was to him a long time ago.

Leonard was a honorable partner, a natural leader and the smartest, most methodical person Mick had ever known. Teamed up together, that intelligence along Mick’s strength and touch of insanity, they became unstoppable.

No doubt, the highlight of their criminal records was when they got their hands on their special guns. It suited them like hand in a glove, like if the guns had been tailor-made for them.

Mick was rejoiced with his. A gun that shot fire, could heaven get any better than that?

And Len, well, he also was content with his gun. He wasn't some ice lover like Mick was fire’s, but the clean and precise element of ice, that had written Len all over itself.

It was also the greatest analogy—yes, Mick knew what that was! Stein would be so proud, _ugh_ —of their own personalities and dynamic. They were opposites, but that was why they completed one another. Still, if they confronted the other, it would be chaotic.

But obviously, Len was more than a partner to Mick. He was a friend who'd always kept him in balance and a brother that remembered him that there were always things actually worth fighting for. Fuck, Leonard had even been his lover once in the past.

Their attempt at being lovers hadn't worked as well as they'd wished. Some things got in the way of their relationship—jail, Lewis coming back from the dark, to name a few—and they'd dropped the issue after only a year.

It had been somehow therapeutic and comforting; it brought them together in a new level of closeness and intimacy. Unfortunately, it’d also been distracting.  

He still remembered how shocking—a little twisted, even—it was at first to see Leonard naked. Leonard: the guy that grew right before Mick’s eyes to become the hell of a man he was. The man who Mick met when he was just a teenager in juvie and which he'd influenced since then. The man that had been being a part of Mick’s personal growth since the day they met.

They got too busy playing boyfriends and heists stopped turning out as well as they should have. They recognized they had to give their relationship a break if being criminals was their long term plan. Which it clearly was. Even if they'd wanted to, there was no way back from where they were already standing on the criminal stage.

It wasn't easy, it hurt too much going back to how things were before. Len had learned his way to Mick’s heart, and Mick had learned the one to Len’s. It was all based on the solid foundation of trust, support, respect and love.

It sounded pretty pathetically romantic, Mick knew, but that mix meant having a family and that was something Mick had almost forgotten the feeling of. Belonging to a place, belonging to someone else, it was beyond priceless.

Mick then was unexpectedly interrupted by the most recent object of his thoughts. He startled on his chair as he realized Leonard had been standing on the doorway of his quarters and was beginning to walk in as well.

“Hey, Mick. Something on your mind?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics on this chapter are from the song Believer by Imagine Dragons.


	2. II. The Cure

_I'll undress you, 'cause you're tired_

_Cover you as you desire_

_When you fall asleep inside my arms_

_May not have the fancy things,_

_But I'll give you everything_

_You could ever want— it's in my arms._

 

Mick was drinking vodka, first alarming sign. Vodka meant troubles. Or rather, that there were troubles to forget about.

He wasn't eating anything, either. Mick loved to snack while drinking and he was hands down the biggest fan of synthetic food in the ship.

Ultimately, there was no music, no _Journey_ or _Meat Loaf_ to keep him company. Mick was a loner, but if he could, he'd at least listen to music to keep himself less miserable when he drank.

The frame looked absolutely wrong.

“Hey, Mick. Something on your mind?” He asked, being easily ignored as he walked in his friend’s quarters.

Mick barely looked him in the eyes before taking another sip of his glass.

“We both know if you're drinking vodka then there _is_ something on your mind.” He took a seat next to Mick and leaned back on the chair, crossing his leg over his knee.

“I don't feel like talking,” Mick gruffed.

Leonard shrugged. “Do you feel like doing? Burning?” The suggestion was pointless, he knew that. When Mick had this sort of existential crisis, the solution wasn’t as easy as flaming something up.

“I feel like drinking,” Mick answered refilling his glass.

“Oh, my dear old friend, why are you always this stubborn?” Leonard leaned in and wrapped his hand around Mick’s glass. Mick let go of it and Leonard took a long taste of vodka.

Mick raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Leonard put the glass down and grimaced. “Shit, how can you have this thing completely pure?”

Mick fixed his eyes on the glass. “You know it doesn't hit me that hard.”

“I do. I just wonder how is it that you actually enjoy the taste of it,” Leonard said.

Mick raised his look from the vodka and looked at Leonard. “No one told you to take my drink.”

Leonard smirked. “I’d like to call it stealing.”

“It's not stealing if I let you take it.”

“I knew you wouldn't mind,” Leonard said easily. He got a smirk from Mick and felt happy because of it. Mick was probably thinking ‘ _This bastard knows me far too well_ ’. Leonard knew how jealous Mick was with his drinks if it wasn’t Leonard who ‘stole’ tastes of it.

Although Leonard was enjoying the chit-chat with Mick, he was also really interested on finding out what it was that mortified him.

“So who do you need me to hurt?” He pushed again, bringing his fingertips together over the table.

If Leonard was anything, it would be loyal. Loyal especially to Mick. Mick had always, no exceptions, had his back. Mick had had this protection instinct since day one at juvie towards him and until now that feeling had only grown. Mick trusted him when he didn’t even trust himself and Leonard knew it. It was a big responsibility he’d eventually gotten used to carry, but hell at first it wasn’t that simple.

Leonard had actually managed to turn Mick into better person and he knew it hadn’t been easy for Mick, not by any chance. He’d changed in the most positive of ways and it was for him, for Leonard. Leonard couldn’t let him down then. He couldn’t allow Mick to even consider it had all been in vain.

And Leonard could sense in the air, from miles away, that Mick was obviously troubled. In order to help him, he needed to know what were they dealing with.

“Stop profiling me for a moment, alright?” Mick snapped.

Leonard took a deep breath, scratching his stubble. He’d indeed been profiling Mick.

Mick shook his head.

“I can almost listen to all your thinking,” Mick said.

Leonard wasn’t surprised at Mick’s temper, he just wished he hadn’t been that difficult to open up. All he had to offer were his skills and gun, if this was about fighting someone back, or in the worst of scenarios, a shoulder to cry if this was something bigger than that.

Either way, he was all Mick had and he wanted to make sure to be there for him anytime he needed it, like, evidently, that occasion. Leonard broke the silence, knowing Mick wouldn’t be the one to do that anytime soon.

“We've been to hell and back together and you're blocking me out?”

“I told you I don't feel like talking, man,” Mick barked.

Leonard put his hand over Mick’s over the glass. Mick let go of it again, probably assuming Leonard for some strange reason wanted to drink more of it. Instead, Leonard’s fingers stayed in touch with his and it was a simple but also a very meaningful gesture. 

“I'm a good listener,” Leonard whispered. He was realizing this was something totally emotional and not related to a fight or a fire and his gut even told him that it didn’t even involve someone else. The only other time he’d seen Mick like this was when he confessed him out loud, and for the first time ever, how guilty he felt for his parent’s deaths.

Mick sighed loudly. “I know, Len. I know.”

* 

_So baby tell me yes_

_And I will be all yours tonight_

_So baby tell me yes_

_And I will give you everything._

_I will be right by your side._

 

There it was, Leonard knew. Mick would start talking.

“I've been thinking just way too much about everything. You and how important you're to me, for example.”

“You wanna be with me?” Leonard asked, actually caught off guard. “That I can help you with.” He tightened his grip on Mick’s hand. He thought about pushing harder, telling Mick he knew that that kind of thing didn't make him drink vodka all alone, but he knew the smartest thing to do was to wait silently.

“And how mistreated I am in this ship,” Mick added.

Len broke their contact and folded his arms with determination. So that was what all Mick’s sadness was about?

“It’s just,” Mick continued, “sometimes I feel like I care about them. Haircut, for example. He’s the one I like the most. And then I realize he’s just like the rest!” His tone went up, but he calmed down enough not to keep yelling at Leonard. “They don’t look beyond my past—which I’m not ashamed of. Nor of the fact that yes, I’m an pyro and I have ‘a compulsive disorder about fire’,” he loosely gestured the air quotes before continuing. “The problem is that they think that because of that I’m a complete idiot unable to actually think.”

Mick drank more vodka and breathed loudly in the glass.

Leonard was already thinking of something useful to say, but Mick surprisingly kept talking.

“And then I think about you and how different you’re than them. Because of course you don’t treat me shittily like them. And hell Len, I miss the days when there was an us, y’know?”

Leonard’s eyebrows were trying to walk out of his forehead because he definitely wasn’t expecting Mick to say that. His guess was that the half bottle of vodka was finally and logically starting to make an effect on him.

“Mick,” Leonard started with voice firm and steady and confident, above all. “I know it can be disconcerting to have people underestimating you all the time. Believe me, you know my dad made sure of it,” Mick huffed at that, “but you can prove them wrong. When you have those plans you tell me about, suggest them to the team. Use those refined words you say when you’re telling to me about the ‘beautiful simplicity of fire’. Be better, just as you’ve shown me you can be.”

Mick smiled at Leonard. Leonard knew maybe Mick wasn’t expecting that answer. Maybe he wanted him to suggest that they should leave the ship as soon as he had the chance so they could be back to being a team of two. But Leonard wouldn’t do that, because truth to be told he was also starting to feel a little emotionally connected to the crew. Christ, when had the age hit them both so hard their sentimentalism was all over the place?

“And about the other thing?” Mick asked. “Us.”

Leonard sighed.

“Well, Mick, by now you should know. For me, it’s like we’ve always been that way.”

Leonard had meant to say ‘together’, but he was a little scared to phrase it explicitly, to be frank. What if the cure was worse than the disease, again? And if by getting back together they complicated things even more, like it had happened when they first tried it? Not much had changed. If anything, it would be more difficult to have a relationship if they stayed in the ship—which was apparently what they would end up doing.

Mick stood up and offered Leonard a hand. Len took it and Mick pulled him up.

*

_If I can't find the cure,_

_I'll fix you with my love._

_No matter what you know,_

_I'll fix you with my love_

_And if you say you're okay,_

_I'm gonna heal you anyway_

_Promise I'll always be there,_

_Promise I'll be the cure._

 

Once on his feet, Leonard was brought close to Mick’s body. They were just standing before one another in silence, exchanging a thoughtful and deep look. Leonard had to break it, too overwhelmed by the love in Mick’s eyes. He hugged him tight instead. 

It was a sincere hug. One of those people gave when they just reunited with someone in an airport after a long time. One of those people gave when they thought they wouldn’t have the chance to even touch the other person again and there they were, hugging them.

Mick was holding onto him as if his life depended on it. With strength—physical, of course, but also sentimental. Leonard didn’t know Mick was able to emanate that much hope and love all at once. And that it was directed to him, well, Leonard felt honored and simply joyful for it.

“Len, I needed you, y’know?” Mick rumbled in his ear. His voice sounded less hoarse than usual. “So, so much.”

“I’ve always been here for you.”

“But I needed this,” Mick caressed Leonard’s low back, kissing his temple. “And I don’t think I’d realized it until today.”

“Vodka’s effects, huh?” Leonard joked.

Mick chuckled.

Leonard pulled his head back, just enough to have Mick’s face not next to his, but in front. It didn’t feel new because it wasn’t new, but it was still fucking refreshing to lean in and kiss him again. The smell of alcohol just made it more familiar, more real, and the determination in Mick’s hold and lips had him stunned on his feet.

Their kiss ended—Leonard had ended it. He’d missed it, for sure. Missed _him_. But Mick showing this much affection, though it partly was being induced by the alcohol, was a lot to take in. Mick was broken and crying for help.

Mick wouldn’t just feel that fucking _depressed_ for how concerned he was about what some imbeciles’ thought of him. Not even if they both kind of cared about said imbeciles. And especially not when Mick still had Leonard to have his back. Maybe Leonard hadn’t been as present as he’d thought, then. Maybe he’d actually failed him, as much as it pained to consider that.

After all, he knew that if he played with fire, he would get burned. And Mick was a living flame himself. Leonard had run right into it, willing to let himself die at the hands of the flares of loving Mick. It hadn’t been easy to admit it was love, rather than mere affection and esteem. He’d still done it and _fuck_ it hurt when he had to choose between that and their profession.

There Leonard was, having second thoughts like never before.

It was a matter of seconds when he realized what he had to do—what he actually wanted to do, anyway. Mick’s care was real and he was showing it right then, and he was leaning in to kiss Leonard again with a passion Leonard hadn’t known before.

Listening to his not-so-wise heart was the right thing to do. And his heart screamed loudly that if Mick needed to be fixed, then Leonard would make sure to serve as his cure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from this chapter are from the song The Cure by Lady Gaga :).

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this and maybe other of my fanfics, please visit my [Patreon account](https://www.patreon.com/venezuelanwriter/), in case you would like to help me pay for my college studies (literally, my semesters cost around $100) and also get some awesome, exclusive benefits!


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